“Every time somebody puts a magazine on a phone now and doesn’t put it on to a web app [a form of open software] you know we lose a whole lot of information to the general public discourse – I can’t link to it, so I can’t tweet it, I can’t discuss it, I can’t like it, I can’t hate it.”

Note, the desire for access to information and freedom to ‘hate it’.

Earlier, the same article refers to Berners-Lee’s view — expressed with the authority that he as inventor of the world wide web and only a few others can claim — about the ‘centrality’ of open data access to the vision of the web:

Berners-Lee has in the past warned that the rise of social-networking “silos” such as Facebook, and “closed world” apps such as those released by Apple, which cannot be indexed by web search engines, threaten the openness and universality that the architects of the internet saw as central to its design.

I’ve been thinking about ‘openness’ since my brief comment this week about some political bloggers stalking their targets and so-called enemies by ‘friending’, ‘following’ or ‘liking’ them on social media … then using that platform or information obtained to repeatedly and publicly abuse, denigrate or ‘sledge’ them.

That behaviour makes me queasy (even though I pointedly quote others’ tweets myself now and then). At times it feels like there’s a kind of misuse of social media going on. (Yeah, that sounds like an oxymoron to me too.)

Watch what you’re doing

It’s more than the privacy-intrusion stuff we discuss on ThePaepae.com now and then, e.g. when considering the Herald on Sunday tracking a private person to her front door(!) ‘using Facebook‘.
A reporter gaining access to your personal information because a so-called ‘friend’ of yours gives them access to it — if that’s what actually happened — is dodgy, if you ask me.

The way some people in the blogosphere (shudder) operate, there’s a kind of ‘gotcha!’ happening. Aping Andrew Breitbart at his worst — some attack dogs use fake Facebook IDs or Twitter accounts (they’re stalkers, in other words) — they appear to sift through social media looking for ‘incriminating’ comments etc about their targets/victims/enemies. Some try to gleefully blow things up into a scandal using mock-outrage or just ‘nasty party’ type one-eyed name-calling. (Weaponizing people’s information.)

I don’t have enough time to do that, and my interest in it is by necessity fairly shallow, but what I notice locally is that some public figures (like Labour MP Trevor Mallard, or NZ First’s Winston Peters or National’s Michelle Boag or Auckland mayor Len Brown or Union officials …) seem to cop it incessantly and in a nasty, fixated, low-value way. Often, despite window-dressing, there’s no real scrutiny and criticism (‘public discourse’), just a lot of abuse. I’ve pointed to a handful of people I’m aware of who appear to do that.

Step 1: Make lots of posts repeating anything that anyone has asked you to.
Step 2: (long pause or silence)
Step 3: For the Win!

But, despite all this, Berners-Lee’s larger point is a good one. It’s a ‘public good’ to be able to look at what’s being said by others.

I personally believe in accessing ideas with which I don’t always agree — and dialogue without falling down the rabbit hole — and more so, given my interests, to consider communication tactics … so that I can engage with them, if appropriate, and call ’em as I see ’em.

– P

PS I publish my own eclectic thoughts and comments (sometimes ‘pontificating’ ‘sanctimoniously’, apparently) here and elsewhere openly in my own name, to give others the same opportunity with my ideas. Within reason.

4 Comments »

I still don’t believe that the HOS were able to find my address via a “friend” giving them access to a few photos that i had uploaded to Facebook. Regardless of that though – whatever led them to my doorstep was “dodgy”.

I think all of us – but especially bloggers – are guilty of wanting access to information in order to hate it. I don’t know about anyone else but i quickly get bored with one sided and repetitive blog posts that are aimed at attacking everything a person says and does on Facebook or Twitter though. Heaven forbid Trevor Mallord ever do something really scandalous. I will totally miss it because i tune out every time i read his name on a blog post.

At times i have added people on Facebook because i have just wanted access to or been interested in what they had to say. This applies especially to politicians for the very reason that you mention – i enjoy hearing ideas that i don’t necessarily agree with and hearing the reasoning behind them. It is mind opening and with the changes that have occurred in relation to my own socialisation during my adult life i want to keep an open mind in regards to politics and culture. We can all learn something from each other.

I can guarantee that not every “friendship” i have accepted has been from people that particularly like me. I know for a fact that fake profiles or stalkers as you call them are constantly watching me. With this in mind, and with my experience with the media a couple of years ago i do my best to never say or do anything online – not even to my closest friends – that i would not want on the front page of the HOS. I can guarantee you – my stalkers are fairly bored.

Nothing is private if it is on the internet.

Some people delight in “weaponising” everything that others say. No one forces us to put our opinions, thoughts, and feelings out there though so we only have ourselves to blame if what we put online is used against us. At the same time, we only have to read the abuse of others in the form of weaponising if we choose to – and a lot of people are choosing to. I think the latest blog stats that came out recently highlights that! 🙂

I know for a fact that fake profiles or stalkers as you call them are constantly watching me.

Wow. Really? Erk!

Thanks for your comments Jacqueline. Interesting.

It’s understandable that you see these things that way. I know your (bad) experience of becoming ‘the story du jour’ in such a shallow clichéd way … and all that media attention/frenzy and the BS comment about you would have taught you a lot. Bleurgh.

As for fixated sledging attacks (a la those aimed at the Trevor Mallard’s of the world) yeah, agreed. Boring. But certain personalities seem to have made attacking their political ‘enemies’ (Mallard, Peters, Boag, Len Brown, etc) part of their self-identity, part of their schtick. (Addicted to it, if you ask me.)

It *is* interesting trying to work out why people who see things differently to you, do so. I enjoy engaging with them and always try to do so — so long as they’re not hateful racists or homophobes. (Got to draw the line somewhere.)

Re certain personalities making attacking their enemies part of their self identity;

I don’t know how they do it. They have a much larger attention span than i could ever dream of mustering. I would quickly get bored with the level of stalking and focus those kinds of attacks would require. For some personalities and this is the especially with politicians and i noticed this recently with Hone Harawira’s attempts to get the media involved in the Glen Innes protests – ignoring them is a far worse insult than constant attacks anyway.

Thanks re the Doc Murdoch and the Serenity Rehab post. The attention that i have paid to him in order to write that post is a very good example of “liking in order to hate” i guess. I feel passionately about getting a warning out there and spreading the word regarding that predator. I don’t think i would go to the trouble of creating fake profiles in order to do it though. As strongly as i feel about him – i just don’t have time for that kind of carry on.